Google Doesn't Need My $5

The Gist of This

Rather than use the standard Nest integration that comes included in Home Assistant, I opted to preserve a previous setup that utilized Homebridge to expose the Nest Thermostat to Home Assistant by way of a "virtual" Apple HomeKit hub — all to avoid paying the one-time $5 fee to Google for their developer account. 

I know this can't last forever, but I'd like to think that specific $5 is sitting in my savings account accruing 4.5% interest. As of the writing of this post, that little nest egg is sitting at about $6.72, so I'd say it's worth the extra overhead of another docker container.

The Backstory

I would generally consider myself to be reasonable person. Occasionally, I can be... petty. But I usually chalk up this pettiness to holding strong on principles or standing my ground. In this case, I just really did not want to pay Google's developer fee in order to integrate their Nest smart thermostat into my Home Assistant setup.

Prior to moving most of my smart home things off from HomeBridge, I used a Nest integration that involved picking out a tidbit of information from an existing auth session and reusing that to enable this third-party integration that exposed Nest devices to Apple's HomeKit services thereby "bridging the gap" (Nest Thermostats as of this article do not natively integrate with Apple HomeKit).

When staging for the transition from HomeBridge (HB) to Home Assistant (HA), it was noted that HA's integration for Nest required you to set up a Google Developer account of sorts, which Google so graciously priced down to just a one time payment of $5 (presumably to keep the riffraff out?). 

I was having none of that. 

The Setup

Having installed and set up Homebridge without much issue for several years (hosted on a 2015-or-so Mac Mini), the end goal was relatively easy: 

Advertise my Nest Thermostat using Homebridge, but instead of adding the device to HomeKit, add it to Home Assistant via HA's built in HomeKit Device integration.

Changing nothing about my Homebridge setup is relatively easy—but I couldn't just change nothing. So I took the opportunity to migrate the Nest plugin into a child-bridge (a concept in HB to aid in isolating plugins and services from one another).

I also took the liberty of cleaning up the features and services I was previously using in order to reduce any excess clutter making its way into my new HA setup. Nothing too wild, but a nice spring-cleaning doesn't hurt. 

The Maintenance

Maintenance wise, this is relatively easy. As part of my routine "monthly-ish" routine of updating my home technology things, Homebridge is added to the list to check for upcoming major changes, bump the Nest plugin version if need be, and keep tabs on the miscellaneous services running.

The Future

To date, I still have this Homebridge instance running on a Mac Mini. It's been relatively quiet while it sits off to the side doing its job ever so diligently of relaying bits back and forth between Home Assistant and Google Nest. 

But, that Mac Mini is not long for this world. It's got darn-near a decade of experience under its belt. It served me well through an undergraduate degree, countless side-gigs, a number of other pet projects, and of course running Homebridge.

The day is coming soon when I'll need to retire the old Mini and take it out back behind the barn. Before that day comes, there is a migration to be had from running directly installed on macOS over to running in a tidy little docker container on a Linux box nearby.